IACHR assures that “state agents” participated in the death of Payá and Cepero in Cuba

First modification: 06/13/2023 – 13:09

Oswaldo Payá, 2002 winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize and political leader, and Harold Cepero died on July 22, 2012, while traveling in a car near Bayamo, some 650 kilometers east of Havana, accompanied by a Swedish conservative politician, Jens Aron Modig, and by the Spanish Ángel Carromero, at the wheel of the vehicle.

Carromero, leader of the youth of the conservative Popular Party, survived, was prosecuted for reckless homicide for speeding and convicted, but he assures that that day they were hit by a vehicle from the Cuban secret services.

Payá and Cepero, 60 and 31 years old respectively when they died, “were subjected to various acts of violence, harassment, threats, attempts on their lives, when finally a vehicular crash caused their death,” affirms the IACHR, a body of the Organization of the American States (OAS).

The organization sees “serious and sufficient evidence to conclude that state agents participated in the deaths” of the two dissidents.

“An Official Car”

The IACHR takes into account the versions of Carromero and an eyewitness that assure that the car in which they were traveling “had been hit by an official car.”

Since Cuba did not present arguments or deny these arguments, the IACHR deduces “that the Cuban State violated the rights to life, honor and freedom of expression of both persons.”

Reaction of the daughter of Oswaldo Payá

In addition, the IACHR identified “multiple irregularities and omissions in the investigation of the facts, such as the lack of expertise or assessment of the statements of the surviving persons and that the authorities took an immediate official position.”

Payá’s relatives did not have access to the autopsy reports and in the Carromero trial they were not allowed to request evidence or appeal the sentence, denounces the IACHR, which establishes that Cuba violated the rights stipulated by the American Declaration.

In the case of Carromero, the State “violated the right to personal integrity” since the Spaniard was detained “illegally”, “threatened” to confess his alleged responsibility and suffered “torture and inhuman treatment such as beatings, lack of access to fresh air, sunlight and proper nutrition.

“Persecution and repression”

The events occurred in a context of “state persecution and repression against political dissidents and defenders in Cuba, with the aim of hindering or paralyzing the work of defending and promoting human rights,” denounces the organization.

Payá’s death, into which his family has always called for an independent international investigation, left the Cuban opposition without its main leader.

Payá, also a Spanish national, founded the Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación (MCL) in 1987 to oppose the one-party Cuban regime then headed by Fidel Castro.

With his well-known Varela Project, he obtained thousands of signatures to ask the government to guarantee freedom of the press and assembly and to open a path towards a multi-party democracy, but the communist regime rejected it.

His family was forced into exile in the United States after the Cuban authorities denied them freedom to move around the country and remove Payá’s mortal remains.

The IACHR urges Cuba to compensate the victims and their families, to carry out an investigation within a reasonable time and to identify and punish those responsible, as well as to take measures to prevent the events from happening again.

It also requests that it create conditions that favor the return of those who had to leave the country as a result of this case.